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'The next best thing to being there': NASA releases the most spectacular picture of Mars ever taken... in all its 360-degree glory

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 12:21 EST, 7 July 2012 | UPDATED: 18:05 EST, 7 July 2012

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We might not be able to get there yet, but as NASA says, 'this is the next best thing'.

From fresh rover tracks to an impact crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain where the voyaging robot spent the Martian winter.

This scene, recorded from the mast-mounted color camera includes the rover's own solar arrays and deck in the foreground, provides a sense of sitting on top of the rover and taking in the view.

That could almost convince us believers that they really did film this in West Texas..

It's not how old you are, it's how you got here.It's been a long road and not all of it was paved.A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes. Gandhi

Originally Posted by Carol

When I judge someone's integrity one key thing I look at is - How does s/he treat people s/he doesn't agree with or does not like?
I can respect someone who I do not agree with, but I have NO respect for someone who puts others down in a public forum. That is the hallmark of someone who has no integrity, and cannot be trusted.

Curiosity, as the article mentions, will land next month - maybe! It is a very tricky landing. The crane device shown does all the parachuting and reverse thrusting to slow the entry. Then when curiosity touches down the crane cuts loose, flies up and away and crashes. Kind of crazy, but that's how it works. They did it like that to spare the sensitive instruments in Curiosity from any sand kicked up by landing rockets.